The texts arrive to us late at night and just before dawn, from women as sleepless as we are.
They are military spouses, increasingly alarmed that the Pentagon’s rhetoric around “readiness, lethality, and warfighting” masks a deeper shift — one that sidelines the very people who hold our force together: military families.
These women turn to us for reassurance, not only because we each spent over three decades as military spouses but because our husbands once served as service chiefs. Like these women, we are deeply worried by what we are witnessing.
Veterans and military families are being terminated from federal roles by the thousands, jeopardizing their financial well-being. Materials addressing anti-racism and gender issues are being censored, not only at Department of Defense schools but across the force. And leaders aren’t being held accountable for sharing sensitive information on unsecure channels, a betrayal of every servicemember and military family who has followed the rules of operational security.
Our sleepless friends want us to reassure them that everything will be okay.
But everything is not okay. The current administration is redefining military readiness in a way that discounts the very foundation of a strong fighting force: the well-being of military families.
Over the past four years, we saw the results that come from prioritizing the needs of military-connected families. Military children finally received assurance that individual states’ curriculum demands would not prevent them from graduating from high school — a critical concern for families who relocate every two or three years because of a parent’s assignments.
We celebrated bipartisan legislation to allow military spouses to work remotely for federal agencies, which helps servicemembers’ partners maintain their careers and boost the household budget with a second salary.
And on behalf of the youngest military kids, the Department of Defense’s Military Community and Family Policy office, along with Sesame Workshop, collaborated on a variety of Military Family Initiatives to help children cope with the challenges of deployment, separation and death of a parent.
These programs, like many others backed by the White House, Pentagon, federal agencies and elected officials from both parties, explicitly acknowledged the connection between thriving military families and military readiness.
The impact of a family’s experience on a servicemember’s decision to remain in the military is well-documented. Multiple studies and surveys, like the annual Military Family Lifestyle Survey from Blue Star Families, reflect that a primary driver of retention in our all-volunteer force is family well-being. When spouses can’t find work, when kids suffer through school transitions, when deployments stretch on with no support, servicemembers vote with their feet. They leave.
We’ve seen it firsthand. We know pilots, engineers and other talented folks in uniform who chose to walk away from their military career because the burden on their families became too great. We lost leaders and thinkers who contributed significantly to America’s strength and dominance.
This awareness is crucial. In an all-volunteer force like ours, individuals make the choice every few years whether or not to keep serving. If today’s Pentagon leadership ignores these realities, they risk not just flagging morale, but weakening operational effectiveness and the very sustainability of the force.
National security isn’t just about missiles and war games. It’s about whether our most dedicated professionals believe their families will be okay when they are in harm’s way, and whether those families believe that Department of Defense leadership truly cares about their loved ones in uniform.
That’s why we’re calling for accountability, not only for continued instances like Signalgate but for every signal being ignored. Military families are speaking out. Military kids are protesting. Veterans and military families are rallying to protect jobs, benefits and healthcare.
We know that America’s national security relies, in part, on how America treats its military families. That’s why we need to listen to military spouses: those who are already speaking out, those expressing their views anonymously, and those dashing off anxious messages to us in the wee hours.
Supporting military families is not a luxury, it is a strategic imperative. Let’s not turn back the clock. Let’s move forward with policies that treat military readiness, and family readiness, as the full-spectrum concept it truly is. We all deserve the peace of mind that comes from knowing America takes care of those who serve — and those who stand beside them.
Sheila L. Casey served as special assistant to the president and as the director of Joining Forces, the first lady’s initiative supporting military and veteran families, caregivers and survivors. She was formerly chief operating officer at The Hill. Suzie Schwartz is a member of the Fisher House Foundation Board of Trustees and of the Air Force Retiree Council.
